Koh Kong

Saying Goodbye to Ruth was made easier by the fact that straight after our holiday in Sihanoukville, I was thrust into a 2-day VSO conference in the beautiful corner of the country that is Koh Kong. A mere 4 hour boat trip from Sihanoukville, I buried myself in my book so as not to dwell on the fact that my holiday with Ruth had come to an end.

Koh Kong is a fairly sleepy border town, serving as a stop-over for travellers coming from or going to Thailand. Compared to the Banteay Meanchey province, I thought it was absolutely beautiful and although the volunteers there have a tough time, it must be somewhat helped by the choice of Western owned bars and restaurants, not to mention the swimming pools!
VSO education volunteers were in Koh Kong to have their EST (Education Sector Team) meeting. The budget is dwindling for such extravagance so this may’ve been the last nd good practice, to provide a forum for discussion or introduce new ideas and training. To be honest I’m still not sure of the purpose although it felt a lot clearer than the first EST I attended back in November which went completely over my head. In those days I was ignorant, along with all the other newbies, of all the VSO Cambodia acmeeting of its kind. I think the idea is for it is for education volunteers to share their activities aronyms (DOE, POE, MIE, PO, PEA, DEA, VA, PF, VP, CESSP, etc) which proved to be quite limiting. This time I felt the new newbies frustrations but was able to follow what on earth was being talked about. In fact, the whole thing was more than enjoyable and was also a great opportunity to catch up with other volunteers who are normally working in far flung corners of the country.

One of the highlights of the trip (other than playing Werewolves again) was the visit to an exceptionally perfect model school on a small island. We arrived by boat and were applauded by a welcome committee of school children as we entered the school grounds. The success of the school is hugely down to the community commitment and to the vision of the school director – two things a school really can’t do without! We watched some of the children perform some traditional Apsara dancing, observed the school breakfast club in action, wandered around the classrooms, saw the mangroves planted by the school and then sat in the outdoor library for a Q&A session with the school director. It was amazing and inspiring to be there and was a really good example of what can be achieved by Khmer school directors and Khmer communities without much outside NGO assistance. It can be done! It also reminded me that the schools in my district really didn’t stand a chance of developing quickly or effectively without a director with vision and a community with some sense of responsibility for its children.

After EST and with time to kill before work started again on Monday (yes it was only Wednesday but we had yet another public holiday to make use of), some of us stayed for a boat trip round the islands nearby and mangroves off the coast. Beautiful, yet pricey, with an 80% chance of spotting dolphins (yeah, whatever!) and waterfalls, we spent a day on board boats exploring the surrounding area. Ok, it already sounds much more impressive than it was! Needless to say, we saw no dolphins or fish of any kind and the waterfalls were there but slightly disappointing as it was the wrong time of year to see massive amounts of water cascading over rocks. We did marvel however at the amazing agility of the one-legged boat man who managed to climb up rickety ladders and over slippery rocks with ease and grace while we huffed and puffed and slipped and broke several rungs of the ladder in our oversized, Western manner!

So sorry for the lack of photos of the beautiful Koh Kong islands, mangroves and water devoid of dolphin activity. My camera memory card seems to have developed an aversion to working properly so until I sort it out, no pictorial evidence to match the text of this entry!